on Nov 12th, 2007Peoples’ Math Skills So Poor They Can’t Tell if They Won the Lottery
In England the National Lottery recently introduced a scratch card game called ‘Cool Cash’. In the game you have to scratch off a temperature lower than the temperature a nefarious penguin has. The problem? Sometimes the penguin has a negative number and the general population doesn’t remember from year 6 mathematics that -15 is a lower temperature than -10.
From the article: As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.
But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.
Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme, called Camelot after failing to win with several cards.
The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: “On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won… and so did the woman in the shop. “I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I’m not having it.”
[click here for the full story from the Manchester Evening News]
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Story via neatorama via reddit.
Header photograph by djprybyl
It does worry me that these people will be looking after us when we are old.
Well, they do call the lottery a tax on people who are bad at math….
So it’s not just Americans who are inexcusably stupid after all.
The brits can call the Yanks fat, but at least we’re not stupid.
I agree, that woman should’ve won!
*Real People*: Lmao, Idiots. Go back to school.
oh dear !!!
“…and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I’m not having it.”
hahahahahahahahaha!!! This world!
I think it’s a clever ploy to not let stupid people win - since they won’t know if they do.
oh dear.
From the article:
“More than 15m adults in Britain have poor numeracy - the equivalent of a G or below at GCSE maths
Almost three times as many UK adults (15.1m) have poor numeracy”
Last time I checked, 15.1 m != 3 * 15m
Hooray! After listening to the Verizon Math Incident (Google “verizon math” to see the silliest math misconception EVER), I thought the United States was the dumbest nation on earth.
Don’t get me wrong, it still is, but at least I don’t feel *that* bad now that there’s evidence of other mathematically-illiterate people outside of my surprisingly uneducated country. I think it has to do with people being stupid in general
Seriously… has anyone ever heard of the number line? LOL
Goodness, somebody got hit on the head with the stupid stick one two many times!
Ha ha now thats when you truely know you are a retard or are Most englishmen that backward??
We have the same problem in the US. Children graduate from school unable to read or do simple math.
wow
Why is this surprising? How much has the education budget been shrunk?
The person that had the 1.000.000 USD ticket, threw it in the garbage because he thought he didn’t win
Which is larger -8 or 5?
Ahh shit.
You folks obviously haven’t heard about the 5% rule! 5% of any population is a waste of space and oxygen. Whether you divide up the population by race, religion, country, occupation, sex, sexual preference, hair color, eye color, or education level achieved the result is the same. About 5% are useless, worthless, and in most cases beyond redemption. I know it sounds mean, but a cold, hard look at reality with bear this out. So this doesn’t surprise me at all! Reminds me of one of my favorite funnies…78.3% of all statistics are inaccurate, the other 22.7% only slightly inaccurate!
Mark, that last comment is pretty harsh. No one is beyond redemption…
Sounds like a good argument for degrees Fahrenheit…
Hardly a good argument for Fahrenheit. But its a great one for Kelvin.
You cannot judge an entire country of some dumb ass people there is no country better than another they all have there problems, so stop with the our country is better than your country is really childish. Did not think there were people genuinely that stooped.
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